Title. Need some examples of games that had lefty politics and leanings and weren't too ashamed to hide it. Platform/country of origin is irrelevant. I know about FF7's support for ecoterrorism, and even the nuance about the people caught up in the middle, and there's plenty of games that take an anti-corporate stance, but that can be easily brushed aside.

I'm specifically interested in this era as it's when games first acquired the ability to become fully immersive in their narratives with the adoption of multimedia melding into the core gameplay loop via the use of full motion video, voice acting, detailed images and so on.

Reminder: all games are political; even abstract puzzle games.

  • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The quote: "There's no such thing as an anti-war film." is as true about Starship Troopers as it is about Metal Gear.

    It honestly has a lot to say about the way we fetishize war and special forces crap...but it also falls prey to indulging in the same thing it criticizes or even parodies. Kojima's schtick is to basically illustrate and frame special forces shit and military hardware with almost pornographic titillation and then sort of do an about face and say: "isn't it weird and kinda fucked up we're all so godamn horny about this stuff"?

    Textually the series is antiwar, anti american foreign policy, and even ostensibly dissects the myth of the one man army super soldier....but it still relishes in presenting those things as cool as fucking possible.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Kojima’s schtick is to basically illustrate and frame special forces shit and military hardware with almost pornographic titillation and then sort of do an about face and say: “isn’t it weird and kinda fucked up we’re all so godamn horny about this stuff”?

      That's why I love that scene from Snake Eater where BB obsesses over the 1911 handgun Eva gives him.

      Textually the series is antiwar, anti american foreign policy, and even ostensibly dissects the myth of the one man army super soldier…but it still relishes in presenting those things as cool as fucking possible.

      Yeah it falls into the same traps that "anti-war" movies fall into.

      • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That’s why I love that scene from Snake Eater where BB obsesses over the 1911 handgun Eva gives him.

        Absolutely*, and the fact that in/around that same scene you can leer at her chest isn't coincidental, especially given what we find out later. A lot of the series' fan service is, on some level, not entirely gratuitous. Its still quite often indulgent, but there is usually a thought behind it.

      • Ericthescruffy [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I feel like this work’s to the message’s advantage. Creating contrast between the text and subtext, or the text and its presentation, is more likely to get the audience thinking about the themes and leave a lasting and more profound impression than preachy moralizing, and it’s more likely to lead the audience toward a deeper understanding of the ideas presented as they have to do some thinking of their own to square the circle, so to speak.

        Oh absolutely. I don't disagree at all. In fact I think part of what makes Metal Gear and Kojima's vision so compelling is that he on some level either understands or (more likely) shares the American fetishization and romanticization of violent warfare and the way its tied up with super/action hero narratives and media tropes. Part of what I find so interesting about the series is that its ostensible hero and "main character" Solid Snake is actually usually characterized as a complete dupe and tool for the establishment while its villains are instead idealists with grander ambitions who actually drive a lot of the forward momentum of the story Snake is trying to stop. That gets even more explicit as the series shifts to Big Boss.